How to Integrate Marketing with Sales

Speaker A: All right, so my name is Paul Clinton. Uh, my company is uh, the Right Way Inc. Uh, we focus on targeted uh, strategic marketing, uh, mostly in the B2B realm. And um, with me today is uh, Shawn Lydon. Uh, and I'm going to let Shawn introduce uh, himself and his company a little bit. Um, and then after that we're going to talk about uh, sales and marketing. Sean, uh, is a very um, successful sales trainer. Um, so we're going to talk today about you know, the importance or the opportunities and potentially downfalls of the integration of sales and marketing or lack of integration of sales and marketing. Um, but let's um, hear from Sean for a few minutes.

Speaker B: Awesome. Paul, I'm so, so glad to be able to jam with you today. My name is Sean Lyden. I am the founder of Systematic Selling. And what we do is we provide sales systems coaching and training for growth minded owners and their sales teams looking to scale their sales without the chaos. And the way we achieve that is we teach a uh, no pressure, no drama approach to sales. That says sales isn't about convincing people to buy, it's about finding or creating alignment between customer's problem and your solution. And man, I've been looking forward to this conversation because there is traditionally a lot of dysfunction between sales and marketing and knowing the distinctions and then how they can work together as a way of solving that problem.

Speaker A: And you, you typically work um. You know, I'll let you speak for yourself. I should say, you know, I'll say typically who I work with is um, the clients who I work with are typically um, uh, you know, automotive or transportation related companies, usually their um, software as a service, uh, technology, uh companies who are selling um, either hardware or software to uh, automotive and transportation related businesses. Uh, so they might be m, you know, more of kind of the mid market or near enterprise, um level companies. And so they have likely would have potentially either like a CMO or a vice president of marketing or marketing director on one hand and then they would typically have like a CRO, um or um, you know, a sales, um, director, um on the other hand. So they would have usually somewhat defined sales, uh, you know, and marketing, you know, distinct teams, departments. Um, and so you know we can talk a little bit about that maybe um, you, it would be helpful for you to talk a little bit about um, maybe the folks you deal with.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm, I'm on the SMB side of things. So smaller uh, companies in the service trades, so most of them specialize in commercial services and Then I've got a handful of home service clients as well. And for the most part they understand that there is a distinction between marketing and sales. The challenge for them is where they put that, that money, that investment and how they don't necessarily uh, in a lot of cases understand how they work together, what the limitations of marketing is and where sales steps in and what the limitations of sales and where marketing steps in. That's a huge distinction I think for both tiers of companies that you and

Speaker A: I work with and give me your take on this. So a lot of the discussion um, you know in my world uh, seems to kind of focus on the sales pipeline and the um, kind of um, how a lead or a prospect would move through that sales pipeline. Uh, and um, not only that but where it would come from. So you know a marketing team perhaps, um, if a lead comes in from like an inbound marketing uh campaign, let's say on a social media platform or even a ah, you know, um, another platform, uh, um that lead a lot of times would be um, labeled as an MQL M A marketing qualified lead. Um and then you know the idea would be that there would be some type of a handoff. Um so that lead would, would, would um, be um, moved forward into perhaps like a sales discovery call. Um, and there's different ways of doing that of course. And then at some point that lead be relabeled as an SQL, a sales qualified lead, uh, perhaps after you know one sales call or whatnot. Um, and then another example of like an SQL could be maybe a lead that came in from the sales team into the sales pipeline. So you know we get a lot of discussion um about you um, know how to label these leads or where they came from. Um, but um, you know the bottom line is, you know in my opinion is, is that we really have to set up kind of a sales pipeline that the sales and the marketing teams can both kind of own and both kind of understand that there's a structure here and we can kind of get into a little bit more on the details on that. But um, do you, is that you know, does that um play out in that way, uh, you know in your world in terms of that sales pipeline and the discussion about where the leads are coming from and then how we can kind of move them down the

Speaker B: pipeline they they do specifically on the home services side that's marketing driven for lead generation. So to give you an example, on the commercial services side I work with some heavy commercial companies in the trades that generate 10 million or more. And they don't, they don't have a, they have a zero marketing spend. They don't spend anything on marketing. They prefer not to have inbound, but the inbound that they get, they, they use to train new sales reps on. They're okay sort of the low, the low risk, uh, leads for them to work with, learn their sales processes and so forth and then you know, eventually graduate to these higher, higher qualified leads that would come specifically through outbound and prospecting. So in that realm they are very sales driven. Home services, that's a different, that, that's a different category. Meaning that they generate their lead flow through marketing, through paid ads, through social, through you know, you know, SEO. And, and so it is critical for those leads coming in to figure out okay, where are we getting our best return, um, on ad spend, return on our marketing dollars and how qualified are those leads when it's handed off to an estimator to go out to do a site visit at someone's home to then proceed with what you would call discovery and in home services that's called the site visit to assess what the, what the estimate will be when they put it together. So m, those are the two different realms that I deal with. Home services marketing is very heavy, heavy M Commercial, it's sales driven because it's developed through relationships, long term relationships with recurring revenue accounts.

Speaker A: So, so you, you opened up a couple of interesting ideas there that I wanted to get into because um, you know, I do get the sense that um, there are uh, a number of businesses um, out there that are on the smaller side that, that really refer, you know, maybe these businesses are established, they've been around a little while and so they really, really rely on, on referral business. Um, so, and that's not a bad thing. Um, so you know, a lot of our business is you know, through people who, you know, a job was done and we did a good job and then their friend, they recommend it to their friend or their family member or their auntie or whoever it is.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: And we get another job. Um, and that, that is not a bad starting um, point for a business. But my belief is that when you rely on a referral business, um, you have a ceiling. Um, in other words, um, you're going to have difficulty scaling that business beyond a certain point because you're at the mercy of someone else referring you to somebody else. Uh, whereas when we implement um, uh, marketing systems and marketing processes, we can actually sort of take control of the lever of business growth by bringing in, um, leads and what I would say, bringing in higher quality leads. Uh, so to me, the function of a good marketing campaign is kind of twofold, right? It's number one, um, it's a way to tell the story of the business. In other words, um, what problems do we solve for our potential, um, uh, customers, um, who are we? Um, and then how do we help? Like, how do we solve those problems? And then number two, it's. It's a way to improve the leads we're getting or to get better leads. Um, and so when I say, um, you know, getting higher quality leads, you know, what I mean by that is, um, getting a lead that is more ready to buy from us, um, and might be, you know, like a warmer lead. We can talk about, like, the different difference between cold outreach and warm outreach. But, um, you know, warm outreach, you know, getting somebody, talking to somebody in the sales process, you. You would, uh, be better to answer it than I would. But, you know, I would think that, you know, the function of marketing is to deliver more of a warmer lead to the sales team. And that might be helpful versus, um, a cold lead. But anyway, that's my, that's my view of, of like the purpose of marketing.

Speaker B: Yeah, a couple things there. One, to piggyback off of what you just said, if I were to think of a metaphor that would describe the differentiation between sales and marketing, I see it in military terms. So I see sales as sort of a, you know, a sales team being special forces, elite forces, boots on the ground, going into, quote, unquote, enemy territory to identify where the targets are. So they, they are boots on the ground. They're providing human intelligence. They are getting a clear understanding of what messaging resonates, what doesn't. And on that ground, intelligence then informs marketing, which is the air cover. So sales identifies the targets. They. They provide it, they identify it, and they show. They show marketing where it is. And then marketing comes in and softens the ground, so to speak, to allow the ground troops to advance into that territory. That's where what you're talking about in terms of branding and building trust and so forth through your marketing to make that a much easier advance for the sales team. So completely get that. Now, uh, I do want to make a distinction when you're talking about referrals. Yes, you're exactly right. You don't want to build a business completely dependent upon referrals. But I would say that is only one aspect of sales. So when I think of, when I think of prospecting, there tends to be uh, these components. One is networking, that is in person networking, which is a act. That if you do it right, lead to business. It's a, it has what I call a numbers game with a compound effect. It's huge. Second is what I call systematic social, social selling. It is being intentional with say, LinkedIn and the B2B space. Not where you are being salesy, but you're treating LinkedIn like it is a networking event, a networking platform. So again, you're building relationships, but now you're building it at scale, not just defined by your, your physical location. That's huge. There's so many tools in there between cultivating that relationship, not only through posts, part of it, which you might say is marketing. Some of it's just who you are as a personal brand, as a sales rep, as a founder and so forth. And so you cultivate those relationships that way. Another component of sales is what I call outreach. It can be cold calls, but it depends on the type of business you're in on whether or not cold calls will be effective. It can be simply, you know, stop by visits, you see, you see a job site, if you're in the trades and you stop by and say, hey, is there someone else? You know? Would you ever be open to getting a quote from electrician, a competitive quote? See if you'd be open to exploring another partner or if they're in drywall repair or whatever the case might be. So those are tangible ways of outreach. What you're talking about with marketing allows once, once you have that messaging honed and you know what your targets are and you're ready to take that next step of scale.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: That's where marketing can make that happen. It is, it is a scaling leverage. That's my perspective and I could be completely wrong, but that's how I've, I uh, viewed it.

Speaker A: No, that's good. And actually also to go back to your, your military example, which I, I think is a good one, um, you know, which, you know, um, to look at this military example, um, is interesting because um, you know, when we, when we think about, um, just from a business standpoint, you know, let's just take out sales and marketing out of the picture right now and just say we're a business, we have a product or service and we would like to grow that business. Now, I guess not everybody wants to grow their business. There are people who are smaller or solopreneurs and they're maxed out or they've reached a certain level and that's okay for Them. I. I know a lot of people like that. They don't want to scale their business. No problem. Um, but, you know, if you do want to grow your business, um, you know, to. To, um, you know, every. You know, and even if you don't want to grow your business, um, you. You need to know, um, who your ideal customer is.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Um, so there are a number of things that I think need to be done up front. You know, many, um, companies now have an ideal customer profile. This is something that an icp, um, you know, and it's important to have a detailed icp.

Speaker B: So what.

Speaker A: What's in that? And we can go into that later. But, you know, that. That's actually, um, you know, a sales tool, you know, in some ways, and a marketing tool, um, because, you know, it. It's helpful for. For both sides of the equation to understand, you know, who we're actually selling to. So, you know, I've had this experience in. In my m. In my marketing, um, agency where I talk to somebody and I, you know, take them on as a. They're like a new client. I start working with them, and one of the first questions I ask them is, um, you know, who's your ideal customer? And in some cases they will say, everybody.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, and it's just an example of a company that hasn't done the work yet. Um, because honestly, everybody, unless you're Coca Cola, uh, or Amazon, probably everybody isn't your customer. So getting that ideal customer really dialed in, whether it's demographic or psychographic or behavioral or just really understanding, um, you know, who that. Who that ideal customer is, and then the neck, taking the next step of doing the buyer Persona. So taking a look at, you know, a buyer Persona, developing that for your business and looking at, you know, who, you know, beyond just the industry or the market, the market vertical, um, who is the actual person that is buying? Is it a woman? Is it somebody who's in their 50s? Is it somebody who's, um, you know, has, um, you know, middle income or higher income or, you know, knowing the. Knowing the actual details and, and how did they buy? Um, you know, a lot of times in. In. In B2, in the B2B realm, you know, we have. We have teams now, procurement teams. Um, and in B2B, I think I read the statistic that. That there's an average of seven to eight people, uh, involved in purchasing decisions. Um, I would imagine maybe in the smaller trade, uh, business, it's probably the owner. Um, but, you know, he might be relying on on other, you know, other people around him. Um, but we do, we do have to, uh, regardless of what it is, you know, I think it's really important to understand all of these things and to kind of have this in writing, you know, to have an ICP in writing, to have buyer Personas in writing. Um, and, and then I think when you do that, um, then, you know, doing the messaging, the go to market messaging is going to be a heck of a lot easier.

Speaker B: I completely agree. In fact, that's where a huge amount of crossover is in the systematic selling framework system number one. So the starting point is messaging, meaning core messaging, your elevator pitch and everything else that stems from your icp. So ICP is the absolute starting point in sales and in marketing. So in my playbook and then sales playbooks that I develop for my clients, that that component is part of the playbook. And it's important because in my own business I use my ICP as a core anytime I'm putting together a creative brief for those who do my marketing. So it's uh, it's. Yeah, it, that, that is what I would call a shared asset between the sales and marketing departments. And that has to be defined. I do. What's going to be a little different though, it helps marketing but is absolutely vital for sales, is that you have a quantitative aspect to your ICP and a qualitative aspect. The quantitative aspect is are we going after the right size company, the right title, so forth, right number of employees, There's a spec to what you're looking for, the right industry. The qualitative is do they fit us, do they align? Is this an account that we want to work with? So it's who should we pursue and just as importantly, who should we avoid? What are the red flags? Because the uh, who should we avoid can match the quantitative part of your icp, but it will bring a lot of toxicity to the company. If you take them on, they're going to be high maintenance, they're going to be, they will try to beat you up on price every single time. Or you perform the work like in commercial services and next thing you know you've got invoice disputes and you're having to deal with those. So having clarity on your ICP up, uh, front so that your sales team knows I have the freedom and discretion to turn down this lead M is absolutely huge. So I'm, I'm a big fan of icps, how it impacts sales and then also how you hand it over to marketing. And if marketing knows the types that we want to avoid that can help them in their, in their messaging as well.

Speaker A: You know, I, I There, there we see these and maybe we can talk about a few of the, of the dysfunctions about um, you know, when sales and marketing aren't aligned. Yeah, m. The, the, the, the, the big one, um, that I've seen, you know, in the work that I've done, um, relates more to I would say like market verticals. So you know, as part of your ICT icp, you're kind of understanding, you know, what industry you're selling into. But even within that industry, you know we see kind of these smaller market verticals. Um, and then um, that can actually kind of ladder down to like buyer Personas. Um, but you know, I had an, I had a client for example who um, who sol. Um, you know, telematics, uh, services to. Plumbing, electrical, H vac. Um, and they did have some customers who were, who were trucking companies. Um, and they, they were, their sales team was spending a lot of its attention uh, selling um, compliance, uh technology our, that monitor hours of service and things like that into you know, um, to their client base. This was, this was kind of trucking based technology. And when they took, you know, when they started looking a little bit more deeply into you um, know, who their ideal customer was, they found out that something like 70, uh, Their current customer base were these field service businesses. Um, so they were spending, their sales team was spending way too much time. And I think their trucking business um, was maybe 15% of their business and the rest of it was I think government client smash there. So when they're looking at the products and the services, we're focusing on a product. Our sales team is focusing on a product for the 15 to 20% of our audience. When all these other products, um, like video and tracking and other other other things, we should have been selling those because um, the 75% or 65 to 75% of our, our customer base wanted that and didn't want the trucking technology. Um, so to me that was an example of just a major mismatch and not knowing, not having that alignment and not um, you know, the marketing team, um, you know, and the sales team just didn't. They just weren't singing from the same, you know, hymnal.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I see you know, on a smaller company level a situation like that is, is more of a triangle. Meaning you've got sales is going out doing this and they're calling on trucking companies because for whatever reason they are, you've Got marketing over here going, yeah but trucking is only 25% of your business. 75's over at Field service. In these other places what you gotta have is the C suite, which is the tip of the triangle going which business should we be in? It may very well be that the um, going into the transportation trucking is where we want to go because whatever the case might be, we'll get 45, 50% gross margins whereas over here we're at 30%. And so strategically we want to make a shift. But without that data, both sales and marketing are operating on islands and neither one has the ultimate is able to be the arbiter of truth. So that's where having strong C level leadership to go. Strategically where do we want to go? Could be the 75% going hey sales, look over here. This is where we need to go. In fact we are going to transition out, uh trucking. We're going to go all in field service. That's a strategic question. Too often in both small companies and in large they just defer it to say more. Hate to say it but my experience, marketing becomes the punching bag.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: So because sales uh, if they're, if they're performing, they're paying for themselves and is. And, and it's clear based on what they're earning, they can kind of justify their existence with clear KPIs. It's, it's marketing that gets kicked.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And, and of no fault of their own because marketing's job is to execute what C level says. This is our strategy. And if C levels um, Mia. And not providing that you kind of left out on an island man.

Speaker A: Well in that. And that's another disconnect that you just described is, is the, what I call the data disconnect. So you know sales might be looking, I mean they probably have a CRM and they're looking at, at, at you know, um, different data from the CRM. We can, it could be business, um, you know, it could be uh, a deal pipeline. They could, it could be looking at conversions from meetings or conversions from calls or, or what have you and you can get all that. But then you know, on the marketing side, you know we kind of look at this, you know, fuzzy ROI of marketing and um, you know, a lot of times you know the, what the mistake that marketing teams make is they focus a lot more on engagement. How many um, uh, views are we getting or how many likes are we getting on social media or things like that? And I think the key um, to, to marketing ROI is to Tying it and linking it to business outcomes. So this is kind of when I, where I was going, going with this um, you know marketing uh and sales kind of both joint, you know co owning the sales pipeline um because you know as marketers we can come in there and we can, we can help sales by looking at o, you know, what is your sales process? We've defined that maybe you have you know two calls, maybe you have a discovery call, maybe you have a presentation call and then so, so the marketing team can be um, supplying and providing resources at each of these different touch points you know along the sales pipeline uh to support um, you know moving that lead down the pipeline from um, maybe a lead to MQL SQL to opportunity, um, to close one. I mean that's all, that's what we would like to do. Um, but you know being able to kind of support that um, those touch points at each point uh, and having the alignment. So if the sales team is selling the trucking product and the marketing team is talking about the telemat, the vehicle tracking product, um then we're not going to get there. But um, you know, if we're all kind of you know, have an understanding of, of who that ideal customer is, um, and then at each of that points we could, at each of those points the marketing team can provide a resource. Maybe it's a, an audit or a, or of their website or maybe it's a um you know, some kind of ah, template um, that we can offer. Maybe it's um, um kind of a video uh tutorial or walkthrough that we can, we can give to the sales team to help them, you know, better communicate um, you know, with the prospect not only understanding their challenges but then being able to ladder that back to our own, our own services. Um, but if we don't, if we don't know any of those things and we're not coordinating well, we're just going to have a disconnect.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's marketing pushing for data, sales pushing for the same data and the two collaborating on what will drive these numbers. So in a lot of the companies that I work with on the commercial side that are not heavy with marketing on, on lead gen and again the conversation there is if you're talking about say a SaaS company or a product company on the Commerce, on the B2B side, throwing marketing towards Legion is a great way of scaling that because you've got a fixed product and all of that. When you're talking about a services business you can't get ahead of your skis. So too much lead gen when you've already with your existing personnel and the existing number of of techs to be able to handle the workflow that you have too much legion flow creates a lot of chaos into the system.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And that's why they're very strategic on when they pull that lever. So that's why in that instance it's not, not a huge thing. But where sales can, I mean where marketing can bring the value is what I call sales enablement. Providing the tools that support, in this instance support sales through their process. For example, you scheduled an introductory 30 minute initial zoom to see hey, are we even aligned before we do a deeper dive discovery. Well it'd be great to have a crisp PowerPoint presentation that sales and marketing collaborated on. Go. You know what? This, this takes us through the progression as an introduction of who we are and allows that customer and us to determine, hey, are we aligned to take the next step? That is an aspect Crafting messaging for follow ups. Crafting messaging for. Hey, we scheduled a uh, site visit. If we had messaging or videos that help build our credibility before the technician arrives at the site visit is powerful. And I've got a client that does that. Very good at it. And it's an automated sequence based on content that was already developed, videos and so forth and um, then being structured into hey, let's pull some video content from what you do. I, I tell people all the time that, you know, so my sales background was selling medium duty commercial trucks for gmc, Chevrolet and Isuzu. If I were selling trucks today, I would, I would be, I would have marketing come out and video me doing vehicle walk arounds of the new model year vehicles. Oh yeah. Talk about what has changed. Why this is impactful for, you know, fleet buyers and so forth. And I have a ton of contacts in the truck sales space and none of them are doing it is a wasted opportunity. In fact, when I was working in the dealership, we would have walk around competitions to see how well we knew our product. Freaking record that cut it up and put it out there. So yeah, there's so many missed opportunities that in the commercial B2B service space where I see marketing bringing a ton of value is in that sales enablement support and then the home services side going, okay, how many um, ultimately how many SQLs do you guys need? Right? Because bargaining qualified leads is one thing. What matters to sales. Yeah. And ultimately what matters to the owner is SQLs. And yeah.

Speaker A: So converting them.

Speaker B: Yeah. What what can we do to facilitate that and what can we do on our end to provide reporting of where that's coming from so that we can double down investment there, cut back investment here?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's great. And I think also um, to your point, these field um, service companies or these service companies have really a great opportunity um, to add a ton of value uh, when they're doing these site visits. Because um, let's say it's an H vac company or a roofing company, uh, they could easily bring their camera and they could offer that. As uh, part of our estimate we'll give you a video inspection of your roof or of your uh, H vac system. And, and we'll tell you exactly, you know, what's going on. And um, you know, the free estimates have been part of the trade industries for years. But um, you know, what if you just kind of made it a little more um, of a kind of a resource based thing where you, where you you know, had videos where you could talk, where you talked about um, you know, here's what happens if you allow like the rats to kind of eat the edge of your roof for X number of you know, months. Like what, what would, what could happen if you don't do anything about this? Um, so not just the inspection itself, but then, then almost the um, kind of the, the education um, that surrounds that. Um, to me I just feel like that's a real opportunity for them to um, to help in um, connecting with their prospects and you know, getting warming up so to speak. You know, their, their prospects and they will be more likely I think to, to show up.

Speaker B: So you

Speaker A: may even be more likely to, to, to buy from you versus one of your competitors who didn't do that.

Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. And it's, it's a best pr. That's a best practice of a lot of the uh, um, service trades right now of your top tier. These people get it and that's why they're crushing it is because they integrate that, that level of service, that level of building credibility, increasing touch points. So the way I always describe it is the trust continuum on the sales cycle from 0 to 10. 0. I don't know you, I don't trust you. To 10. These are raving fans and they will beg to buy whatever you're willing to sell them. And each touch point is an opportunity to nudge them to the right on the trust continuum, nudge them closer to 10. So the best companies out there understand that concept and so they will put together those they'll put together those videos, they will have them framed depending on where they are in that cycle. Is it pre the site visit? Okay. They will have a certain messaging there, post site visit before the scope review, call. There's going to be a certain type of messaging there, everything designed to move them along. And yes, that's exactly where marketing can come in to provide that support, to nudge that prospect along the trust continuum.

Speaker A: Awesome. Um, so I wanted to see you know, if you had any other ideas about you know, better ways or you know, specific tactics I guess for, for achieving this, this kind of idealized um, dream that we're speaking about, where the sales and marketing teams are walking step, you know, step in step and, and um, um, you know, knowing what the, you know, the right hand, knowing what the left hand is doing all the time. And um, I think there are a couple of things, you know, you can, to improve the situation you may be in right now. Maybe you're in a situation where as a business your sales and marketing um, efforts are a little bit disjointed. Um, there are some, some ways that um, you can kind of bring those together. Um, and I think um, one of them is to use a fairly full featured CRM, A uh, contact resource management. Now I know uh, we don't have to talk about, we don't have to boost anybody's profile. I think m. Just a little Internet research will reveal five or ten um, good CRMs that you can use. But in the age of AI there are a lot more of these. CRMs are adding marketing features, AI features to them, them. Um, as opposed to kind of back in the day, uh, when CRMs were just basic contact management tools. Um, when you, when you, when you use that um, you're, you're kind of missing out on an opportunity. I, I know the profit margins sometimes on these, these service businesses aren't, aren't you know, through the roof. Uh, so a lot of the name of the game is controlling costs. You know I, I actually um, have talked to a number of plumbers and electricians and others, um, where I was learning whether I could help them. And I got the sense that a lot of it on the smaller side, when they only have maybe less than five technicians, they're really in kind of a cost control mode. Um, but maybe when you get a little beyond that point, um, if you use a full featured CRM, um, you can set all these things up, um, that kind of ladder that start with the foundation of good contact, uh management. Um, but then adding Automation, adding, um, you know, marketing emails, adding um, you know, data reports that tell you, um, you know, what's happening. Adding, you know, deal, a deal pipeline that gives you a little bit more um, of you know, sense of, of how the conversions are translating into um, to revenue for the business. But give me your thoughts on that one and maybe you might have some others.

Speaker B: So in terms of thoughts of how can we, how can we break down this divide between sales and marketing so that there's greater collaboration? There's uh, there's two things I, I have in mind depending on the size of the company. So the smaller, the smaller companies, and I'm speaking to the founders and the owners, these companies is bring strong leadership and uh, incorporate both sales and marketing in these strategy meetings so that there can be collaboration. Let them know precisely what their roles are, where they begin, where they end and show, show that integration. Show the value, explain the value of them collaborating together instead of competing against each other so that marketing understands exactly what it is doing and how it's contributing to the pipeline and sales understands exactly what marketing is doing and contributing to their success that comes from the top. If that's not clear, that collaboration won't happen and you will have dysfunction. Everyone loses in that scenario. So bring that leadership. Secondly, if you're in a larger company, you're in the marketing department, you're in the sales department. Instead of complaining that sales isn't listening to you or marketing isn't listening to you because for whatever reason there's uh, a disconnect with senior leadership, but you're still accountable for your KPIs reach out to the other side. Meaning, hey, let's talk. If you're in sales, you go, hey, let's talk. Is there any way that we could get these types of resources when we're out in the field? This would really help. Hey, is there any way that we can bump up what we're doing on socials? Is there any way that you can provide someone to film me while I'm doing this or if I film this, is there any way on the back end you can take this and turn this into posts that I can do on my personal account and we can also do on the company account that sales reaching out to marketing. Yeah, marketing going, hey, you know what, It'd be smart if we interviewed some of our sales reps to ensure that we're on the, on the right track with our messaging. And as you're developing marketing messaging, reaching out to these sales reps in a conversation not Just sending it to them, going, hey, what are you thinking? That, you know, I guess spend an hour.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Typing out a reply versus hey, can you take 10 minutes? Hop on the zoom. I want to run something by you. Get your, get your feedback on it, and then you get that live feedback and go, you know what? That's super helpful because no one is closer to the customer than sales. Some marketing, break down that barrier and do it. So that's the two things. One, small company, top down, big company, lateral. Own your space, reach over to the other side.

Speaker A: That's really great. And just to kind of add a little bit of color to that, uh, m. I think, uh, one thing that isn't always valued, uh, in these companies that I see is really bringing the voice of the customer to the forefront in the marketing campaign. Um, and so the sales team, as you said, you're absolutely correct, uh, the sales team is closest to the customer. Um, and it's really important to get not only testimonials from customers, but also to, to do case studies, um, to build stories around the customer journey. So customer AB or C came to us with these problems. Here's what we did and how they. And here's how we helped the customer. We didn't do it for them, we supported them, and here's how we help them. And here are the results they got by using, um, Product xyz. Um, you know, and they don't have to be lengthy. And a lot of times now you can put these things on video. Um, you know, you can jump on a zoom call with a customer and just kind of do it over video. Video is a great format for building trust. Um, so, you know, you know, doing a written case study is not bad. It's better than nothing. Um, but, you know, doing a video case study where, um, you actually kind of. The customer actually kind of walks through, um, you know, the, the before, the during, and the results. And I think those things can be very powerful. Um, a lot of times the marketing team doesn't ask the sales team to do it. A lot of times the sales team says, oh, you know, customers don't want to talk or they won't be quoted or, or they're afraid of, of angering customers, uh, that they have to ask for a renewal in six months. Uh, but it's okay. You know, we can, we can ask these type of questions. I think making the customer, you know, the centerpiece of our marketing campaign is what we should be doing. And I think the customers will like that if we make them look good, we just quote them accurately. We, we, we talk about the, the results and the success they're getting. Um, we're not going to make them look bad, we're making them look good. So I would think they would want to talk to us.

Speaker B: Yeah, completely, uh, agree.

Speaker A: Um, so I just think it's great, um, um, having a customer centric marketing campaign is what I love and what we try to help our clients, um, get to. Um, the messaging sometimes can be a little bit too company focused, um, in terms of the awards we've won or the um, senior management news we have or the product updates we have. Um, and those are okay. But um, we really just need to make sure that any, anything really we're saying, um, to the, to our audience and to the world puts um, the customer at the center of that. Um, it's a lot easier said than done. I mean I'm just listening to myself say it and I'm thinking, gosh, oh Paul, that's so obvious. Um, but it's just funny how, um, a lot of times companies don't do it.

Speaker B: I agree. It's simple, but not necessarily easy to execute.

Speaker A: Yeah, but I love what I loved. You know, everything you said about that, um, you know, the, the, the thing, um, that I really liked, um, you know, about including them in the planning meetings and asking for feedback. Um, because you know, when you, when you ask each other for feedback, when the sales and the marketing teams act, ask each other for feedback and what's working, um, you know, I think that really creates a stronger bond and even if we sometimes disagree with one another, that's okay. But as long as we try to, you know, make it, um, you know, not personal, don't make it personal. Um, but just, you know, it's okay if we have different perspectives and we, and we disagree with each other, um, in, you know, even in a more emotional way. But then, you know, we come back to work the next day and we realize that all of that is part of the refining of, of our, of our go to M market messaging and our pipeline. Uh, you know, of the prospects who are, who are coming into our pipeline to your point to making sure that they're a right fit, that we're not, uh, in putting them in our CRM and making them part of our sales pipeline.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah,

Speaker A: I'm sure you've seen that happen a few times.

Speaker B: Yeah. Just all that's noise and, and you want to focus on, on the leads that deserve your attention. Should get your, your attention.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, man, I Am. Thank you so much for inviting me on to, uh, to jam with you. I always love, love talking about both sales and marketing. I came, I came from both, both sides of the equation. So, uh, been, you know, been with a marketing agency and I came from sales. So having that make sure I, I have, I have empathy for what marketing goes through. And I can tell you I've been in situations where a company that I had worked with from a copywriting side, they went through four marketing directors in the span of 18 months.

Speaker A: Ouch.

Speaker B: No, and it, and it just went to. It just goes to show that marketing is one of those things that in smaller companies the owner needs to own, and then the bigger companies, the marketing department has to show what impact that they're making. Senior leadership understands, sales understands. You do that, then, then you'll have success 100%.

Speaker A: Well, you know, this was such a great conversation and, you know, I, I can tell, um, you know, we, we both have, um, some good stuff to say, but, you know, thanks for, you know, taking time out of your busy schedule to talk about this. And I really think it's an important message that, um, a lot of businesses need to hear. Even though it seems so simple and it seems so obvious, um, I think when we talk about this in an integrated way, um, I hope this will be just the beginning of a lot of conversations that are happening out there, uh, in companies as well, uh, about this. And I know they're happening and I know a lot of companies are getting more sophisticated about this. So I just hope we're part of the same. This great conversation where, um, we're helping businesses grow and scale the way the owners want them to. That's, I think everybody's goal is that we want businesses to be able to grow and scale as they want to.

Speaker B: 100%. Great topic. I think it's timely and, uh, definitely hope whatever little bit that we've done in this conversation can help be a contribution to the solution.